5 Must-See Shows if You’re in New York This Month

Sick of Scrooge? Not having “The Nutcracker”? Here, The New York Times’s chief theater critic, Ben Brantley, looks at new non-holiday plays in New York this month, including a high-energy dark comedy about a girls’ soccer team and a contemplative drama about a family awaiting the results of this year’s presidential election. There’s also a Broadway kvetch-fest and two immersive shows, one about a randy sexual heaven and the other about a ghostly hell.

Video

A scene from Sarah DeLappe’s new play, at the Duke on 42nd Street.Published OnSept. 11, 2016

THE WOLVES [Read the review] Though it concerns an all-female high school team dedicated to the art of landing a ball between goal posts, Sarah DeLappe’s thrilling debut play isn’t just for soccer moms — or dads, players or fans. It’s for anyone interested in first-rate ensemble acting and theater that keeps you on the edge of your seat as compellingly as any tiebreaker. Seen in a sold-out run earlier this fall, this pulsing Playwrights Realm production, directed by Lila Neugebauer, has been brought back for the holiday season, providing a renewed opportunity to experience a most astute portrait of the generation of young women now coming of age.

From left, Meg Gibson, Maryann Plunkett and Lynn Hawley in “What Did You Expect?,” part of Richard Nelson’s “Gabriels” family trilogy.CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

THE GABRIELS, AN ELECTION YEAR IN THE LIFE OF ONE FAMILY [Read the review] No matter what your political persuasion, you’re likely to find you have much in common with the title family of Richard Nelson’s cycle of plays about hard choices and hard times in small-town America. Set in an upstate New York kitchen on the nights on which these three plays originally opened during the past year, Mr. Nelson’s impeccably acted, deeply moving productions can now be seen in a single-day marathon. An anxious but loving clan assembles to eat, quarrel and swap woes and epiphanies about their daily lives, and in the process burrow into the conflicted heart of a nation. (The last of the works, “Women of a Certain Age,” opened on election night, after the play’s characters had voted.)

A scene from John Mulaney and Nick Kroll’s new show at the Lyceum Theater.Published OnOct. 10, 2016

OH, HELLO ON BROADWAY [Read the review] A perfect crash course in the quintessential Manhattan sensibility — or anyway, a quintessential Manhattan sensibility — for visitors unacquainted with the gritty folkways of the Upper West Side. It also happens to be the funniest play in town. The young comedians Nick Kroll and John Mulaney have taken on the personas of a couple of longtime, cranky and infernally codependent septuagenarian roommates, and in those disguises manage to be blissfully offensive (and on-target) about pretty much everything, including the theater itself.

Tori Sparks, center, with other cast members in “The Grand Paradise.”CreditSara Krulwich/The New York Times

THE GRAND PARADISE [Read the review] The best bargain going on island getaway vacations, this environmental-theater piece from Third Rail Projects invites you to spend time in a tropical resort of the 1970s, where inhibitions are shed along with any cold-weather clothing. A team of lithe and seductive dancers leads audience members through a labyrinth of sunny landscapes and shadowy rooms, improbably brought into being in a Brooklyn warehouse, where (almost) anything goes. This hedonist’s holiday concludes its run at the end of this year.

Melody Grove in “The Strange Undoing of Prudencia Hart” from the National Theater of Scotland.CreditDrew Farrell

THE STRANGE UNDOING OF PRUDENCIA HART Your chance to dance with the devil. This bewitchingly shaggy dog story from the National Theater of Scotland has set up camp in a custom-made pub in the McKittrick Hotel (home to the immersive hit “Sleep No More”) to enlist audiences in the telling of a lusty tale about an inhibited academic who meets up with Old Scratch during a snowstorm. Song and drink will be served. And though I didn’t imbibe when I saw this show in London, I left it in a state of happy intoxication.